So You Think You Need More Lures?
Of Course You Do!

We are finally getting to that time of year when most Illinois fishermen become more excited about using fishing lures rather than buying them.

Buying lures is the best cure ever invented for a case of the wintertime blues. After buying lures, we can then enjoy countless hours of sorting them into our massive tackle boxes, then moving them to a smaller box, and then back again.

We can paint them, sharpen their hooks, and meticulously tune them with a subdued giddiness that would embarrass a roomful of Avon ladies with a new shipment of lipstick.

We scour the bait shops, tackle swaps, and department store bargain bins for hours and then go home to look for more lures online.

Most of us never reach that fairy tale day when our list of fishing things to buy is blank, because when it gets close, we hear that some lure company has a new version of the Chatterbait, that a fishing buddy has found a killer jig color, or........ on and on.

Every wife and girlfriend instinctively knows that the list will never end and they try to tell us, but we just don’t listen.

My personal weakness this winter was different varieties of plastic lures. I bought plastic frogs, plastic swim baits, plastic craw baits, and multi-colored tube baits.

Sure, I picked up the occasional spinnerbait, crankbait, and buzzbait to cram into my already bloated tackle boxes, but the sheer volume of plastic baits forced me temporarily store them in old shoe boxes.

I say “temporarily” because it is only until the new tackle boxes that I ordered online arrive, when I can give my new purchases a proper and more suitable home.

We buy lures faster than we could ever use them. Most of us could lose one lure per minute for the next 10 years, without buying more, and still have enough for an impressive backyard sale.

Of course, the “without buying more” part is pure fantasy, but our spouses can always dream of that joyous and elusive day.

We buy lures and put them into tackle boxes with unopened lure packs from last year, the year before, and who knows when.

We do this because we just never have enough time to fish and because it is better to be prepared rather than to be lacking that avocado green, ribbon-tailed, salt-impregnated, seven-inch worm with the tail dyed chartreuse, when we need it.

Our obsession is intensified if we happen upon a special item that actually catches more fish than the 10,000 that we already own. We then feel compelled to buy every last package within a 50-mile radius.

We burn tanks-full of gas looking for our pet lures because we have a morbid fear that, either somebody else will buy them, or tomorrow the lure company will quit making them.

So we buy them all, even if it’s a 20-year supply. Then, just to be sure that we didn’t miss a package somewhere, we ask our fishing buddies to look in stores near them.

If our wives or girlfriends accidentally see our stash of 50 packs of the same lure in the same color and question our sanity, we fabricate stories about how they were on sale, or how some illiterate store clerk put a bargain price on them, or that fishing buddies will pay for most of them and we just picked them up.

She knows that, on the rare chance that the story is true, we will never receive anything for the lures, unless it’s in the form of six-packs of beer.

(Hint to novices:  Tell her that you used a half-price coupon and all may be forgiven. She may even tell you how smart you are and start looking for lure coupons herself.)

So, our list of fishing items to buy never goes blank. It just fluctuates a little from year to year, thus ensuring that this sacred, ancient ritual is preserved.

Year after year it continues, as if it was a “Rocky” sequel. Unlike the “Rocky” movies however, let's hope this one never ends.